Prime Minister Narendra Modi has accepted an invitation to meet U.S. President Barack Obama in September, as Washington seeks to court India's new government and revive strained relations between the world's two largest democracies.

The Obama administration has been working to boost ties since Modi's thumping election victory, seeing India as an important counterweight to an increasingly assertive China and a prospective export market.

India and the United States set great store by the economic potential of their ties, but their relationship has been fraught in recent years. Washington has set a strategic goal of expanding their $100 billion annual trade by five times.
In its statement, the Indian government said Modi was "looking forward to a result-oriented visit with concrete outcomes that impart new energy to (the) India-U.S. strategic partnership".

The Ministry of External Affairs confirmed that Modi had formally accepted Obama's invitation.